


Sunset

by Natterina



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Sad Ending, Tragic Romance, kind of, the sad one, two identities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-15 00:44:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11219688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natterina/pseuds/Natterina
Summary: He is Roxas, lost and adrift, only he doesn't know who Roxas is.  He is Ventus, in charge of his own mind, though it doesn't much feel like it.Lea is whole, a heart beating in his chest, but he's beginning to wish he didn't have one.





	Sunset

He doesn’t know who he is.

Wait, no, that’s not right. He _does_ know who he is, he is Ventus, he spends his summers with his best friends _Pence_ and _Axel_ and –

No. Ventus tries to push against the darkness that closes in around him, pushing him and pulling him as two identities shake around in his head. He is seventeen and fifteen, he is a nobody and he is _somebody_. He panics, the dive-station too bright to his eyes as the floor changes, a kaleidoscope of colour that flashes blue and orange and green, and red and yellow and black. The images change, from an unversed symbol to a nobodies symbol, flames changing into wayfinders, two Kingdom Keys crossing over the faces of a man and a woman.

He clutches at his head, tearing at his hair as his nails scrape the skin of his scalp, skin splitting and blood seeping under his fingernails. He is Roxas and in love, full of grief and anger and an unfairness that sets him against the world, losing all that he holds dear. He is Roxas and he loves the colour red, the feel of hot skin on his own and the salty taste of sea-salt ice-cream on his lips. A sun sets in his mind’s eye.

He is Ventus, naïve and despairing with an innocence that doesn’t die easily. He loves a man and a woman like a brother and sister, the feel of cold winter air on his skin and watching the stars. He is Ventus and has lost only himself, broken and re-forged in the flames as he tries to take control of memories that are not his. He is seventeen and determined to regain a lost memory, fifteen and struggling to reconcile implanted memories in a computer world with real life ones of a best friend he has forgotten, a lover he left behind.

He is Roxas, only he doesn’t know who Roxas is. He is Ventus, and he doesn’t know who that is either.

He is angry and he is despairing, he wants his friends but his friends are _dead_. The world in his head turns in confusing twists as he struggles to pick apart the memories which are not his own, but he is not even _really_ sure he _is_ Ventus.

Is he Roxas, living with Ventus’ memories? Or is Roxas Ventus, living apart from Sora for a year without his memories and forming new ones, a new identity? His best friends are blue and brown haired, and red and black. His best friends wield chakrams, or do they wield keyblades?

Memories flash before him. Life is new and exciting, every experience an unknown, fear rising in a chest that supposedly holds no heart, and a wicked smile calming his fears, his uncertainties. He’s in Wonderland, confused and lost and a pair of green eyes flash at him, _come on_ , and then he’s on the tower watching the sunset. He is wrapped in sheets, a lanky arm around his waist, and he is pretending the contentedness will last forever.

Life is new but not exciting, every experience familiar but he is unable to place _where_ , blue eyes in the mirror that reflect no pupils, no memory of who he is but a warm smile from the woman who hates rain makes him feel better, pulls him out of his own empty shell. A friendly arm is thrown over his shoulder, strong and heavy, and he feels safe for the first time since he arrived.

 _Who_ is he?

His arms are scarred from battles, though with who he is not sure, unable to track a scar to a certain injury. He looks down at the floor, still changing colour rapidly enough that his head feels as though it is splitting, and he _chooses_.

He is Ventus. He is _seventeen_. He _fought_ the influence of the _x_ blade. His best friends are _Aqua_ and _Terra_ , and he is keyblade wielder. He is not the sum of Vanitas. He is _Ventus_.

The station slows in its colour changing, before the scene in front of him reverts to what it once was. Ventus, only awake this time, with Terra and Aqua in the two bubbles closest to his face.

But instead of the wayfinders in the other two bubbles, it is _Axel_ and a black-haired girl, who swiftly changes to Namine.

He panics at the sight of the redhead on the dive station. He had wanted out, away from Sora and away from his grief, the soul-wrenching loss of Axel that had been the only thing to stir him from his slumber inside Sora. But is Axel _his_ friend, _his_ lover?

Who _is_ he?

Ventus takes a step backwards, fearful of the dive station as it glows gold, and falls off the edge.

He wakes with soap-scented arms wrapped around him, his head against Aqua’s shoulder.

He is Ventus, though he doesn’t much feel like it.

* * *

Lea knows something is up the moment Riku walks into Merlin’s house.

Riku and Lea, they’re not friends. They have a respect for one another, of course, but Lea still finds it difficult to interact with the man who stood by and watched as he fought tooth and nail to get to Roxas, to save him from their plan to wake up Sora. The rational part of him _knows_ , without a shadow of a doubt, that letting Roxas be taken in by Sora was the only way to save the keyblade hero, but it doesn’t make the loss any easier.

Lea is selfish, and Axel even more so. He would burn a thousand times over, if it meant saving Roxas. To Riku, Lea knows that Roxas had only ever been a _nobody_ , a broken puppy to feel sorry for but unimportant in the grand scheme of things. But Axel had known, even then, that Roxas had a heart.

He knew it from the whispers against his lips in darkened bedrooms of the castle, from the way Roxas’ fingers would trace across his skin in the low light of the room, a touch for admiration and _love_ , instead of the supposed echo of real feelings. He had known Roxas had a heart from the way he would watch the sunset in awe, never tired of its beauty, from the joy in his face each evening they would meet for ice-cream, from the wicked smirk that would twist his lips when he pushed Axel into a room and locked the door behind them.

Lea knew Roxas had a heart, because Axel had loved him.

So, when Riku walks into Merlin’s house, when Lea is still trying to summon the keyblade as a first instinct rather than the chakrams, he _knows_ something is up, because Riku looks like a man who kidnapped Lea’s boyfriend and is now dealing with some shitty consequences of that decision.

Which, y’know, he technically did anyway.

“Why do you look like a cat shit in your bed?”

Lea can’t help it. He respects Riku, even sort of likes him, but Riku just makes it _so damn easy_ with his perfect broody face. The perfect face, which scowls at Lea as he shoves his hands into the pocket of his black leather jacket.

Lea thinks it looks good on him, but he’ll die before he admits it.

“There’s something you should know.”

Lea raises an eyebrow.

“Riku, dearest Riku, if you’re here to tell me you’ve realised you’re gay for Sora and would like some advice, I gotta tell you, it’s not news to anyone.”

Lea absolutely and _totally_ roars with laughter when Riku physically jerks backwards, alarmed and flushing a deep red that nearly matches Lea’s hair colour.

“Asshole.” Riku bites out, cheeks an impressive pink that spreads down his neck and to the tips of his ears. Lea only continues his laughter, until Riku strides over and pushes him down into the nearest chair.

“This isn’t a joke, Lea.”

Lea laughs. “I never said your sexuality was.”

But something in Riku’s expression makes him pause, the seriousness of whatever is going on doubling by the second. Riku has always given back as well as Lea can give, but there is none of that false arrogance and cocksure one-liners, not today, and it sends off warning bells in Lea’s head.

“What’s happened?”

Riku shakes his head.

“Lea, we found Ventus. He’s in the castle with Aqua and the apprentices.”

“That’s a good thing, right?” Lea is confused, but Riku frowns.

“Lea, he looks like Roxas.”

Lea scoffs. “Anyone with an unruly head of blond hair is gonna look like Roxas, kid. Don’t worry, I’m not going to fall apart just because my newest ally _looks_ like…” Lea trails off, because Riku looks massively uncomfortable like he’s waiting to deliver another blow, and Lea levels him with a stare until Riku cracks.

“Lea, he doesn’t just _look_ like Roxas. He’s identical. Ventus’ heart was trapped within Sora’s: Roxas _literally_ got his appearance from Ventus. They’re wearing the same fucking clothes.”

And Lea is torn between laughing and staring, because on the one hand Riku _never_ throws f-bombs around and when he does it signals the arrival of something Very Bad, but on the other if he doesn’t laugh he doesn’t think he’ll process this correctly and won’t _that_ be a fucking ball of fun.

“And?”

“And, Ienzo and Even have been running some theories by each other. Lea, Roxas might have _been_ Ventus. You said he had a heart: the apprentices think it was Ventus’ heart. Roxas was _Roxas_ , but if he was borrowing Ventus’ heart then he’s locked in there.”

And Lea so desperately wants to hope, because if that is the case then that means that somewhere in there, _Roxas_ lurks alive and reachable, even though trying to wrap his head around it hurts. But he daren’t hope, because Riku looks like someone who has been told to go slap a kitten.

“But?”

“But he doesn’t remember Roxas.”

Lea’s expression doesn’t change. That glow-worm of hope that had just buried itself into a nook in his heart and tried to light it up doesn’t take root. Lea refuses to let it, too used to disappointment, knowing that Riku’s words are delivered so _depressingly_ because they _are_ depressing. His boyfriend is not his boyfriend, but potentially someone else who lacked their own memories, and though Lea immediately thinks that it explains why Roxas never remembered much of Sora (or Ventus, because Ventus was sleeping), it’s still really _damn_ shitty. He realises he now has to work with someone who potentially looks and acts like Roxas, and that might be the worst possible thing to have come out of this.

He is calm, not disappointed and not hopeful, though Riku still looks sad and wary.

The curtain behind them bursts into flames.

* * *

Axel had loved Roxas.

He hadn’t known it at the time, not really. He had rationalised it, pretended the butterflies in his stomach were because of Roxas’ fingers flitting across his collarbone, that the ache in his chest was only the memory of longing, that it had nothing to do with Roxas’ skin beneath his lips and body beneath his own.

When it became clear Roxas had a heart, _somehow_ , he chalked it up to a side effect of being near the boy who smiled like sunshine and loved him, enough to connect with him once he had died, to wish him goodbye on the top of a tower. Axel had felt the echo of the pain, but nothing more, he _insisted_ on it.

But Lea, Lea had woken up feeling like his heart had been skewered with the keyblade itself. Every memory of Roxas was tinged with that _feeling_ , the one he never wanted to talk about or acknowledge, in brilliant high definition and splitting his heart in two with every mention of Roxas. Ienzo had seen right through it, offered him potions to stop the dreams, but Lea will cling on to every pathetic dream he has if it allows him to see Roxas alive. It allows him to reciprocate, to return the feelings in full and _pretend_ that it was the way things had been.

He never allows himself to hope. Lea refuses to be sickened with it, even if Sora’s written letters tell him he is trying to find a way to bring Roxas back. Lea can’t see how that can happen whilst keeping Sora intact, and Riku would lay his own heart down before anything could happen to Sora.

And so Lea wishes he could hope, wishes so hard that his chest burns and his eyes water, but the disappointment and cold harsh reasoning prevent him from doing so.

In hindsight, it’s probably the only thing that stops him from immediately reacting badly when he _does_ see Ventus for the first time.

* * *

It is a nondescript morning in the laboratory when Ventus first starts to feel like there is something no one is telling him.

The feeling that something was _off_ had started the moment he had awakened, of course. Ienzo had called him by a wrong name, something he easily put down to it being the first time they had met, but things had only gotten stranger. Aeleus and Even had looked at him as though they were seeing someone else in his place, and Riku absolutely could not look him in the eyes for the first few hours after he had woken up.

But again, not too strange he supposed: he _had_ met most of them in Radiant Garden thirteen years earlier.

But today is a strange one. It is raining, and Sora has not yet recovered from opening his heart, so Ventus sits around with the apprentices feeling as though he’d be more use _asleep_. It is the first day that Aqua has left him alone, though what she is doing he cannot say. She hates the rain, so he can’t imagine she would have gone outside willingly, but there is no sign of her in the castle.

Ienzo and Aeleus have been looking at him funny again, as though they’re both surprised to see him and uncomfortable in his presence. Ventus tries to focus on the mathematical equations on the chalkboard, the only sound the tapping of Ienzo’s fingers on the computer keyboard and the dripping of some sort of chemical experiment on the other side of the room.

And then there is the sound of a door opening at the end of the hallway, a laughter that rings out alongside Kairi’s, and two pairs of footsteps diverge as one approaches the door to the lab.

“Hey, Ienzo-“

Ventus feels his heart thudding against his chest as a familiar-looking redhead walks in, a wicked grin on his face and his eyes piercing even as they don’t look at him. He’s wearing training clothes, just a vest and pants, but his skin is pink from the heat difference inside, and it shimmers with a layer of water from outside. He is tall and lean, and Ventus feels something in his heart longing for the strange man who seems familiar. It is beating loud enough he can hear it in his ears, and his breath is caught in his chest, but he doesn’t know _why_.

And then the feeling kicks in, because whatever sentence is about to leave those smirk-quirked lips stutters to a halt and disappears into the air when his gaze scans the lab and falls onto Ventus.

Ventus feels like this is a defining moment even as he fails to understand it: time seems to come to a juddering stop as he locks eyes with the newcomer, and something in his heart reaches out and _begs_ him to say something. The newcomer looks at him with his mouth slightly parted and his brow furrowed, and even from where he sits Ventus can see his body tensing as he breathes in shallowly.

“Do… do I know you?” Ventus doesn’t know where he finds the strength to speak considering the mayhem going on in his mind and his heart, but the moment the words leave his mouth the expression on the redhead’s face changes. It moves swiftly from shocked to disappointed, before that smirk comes back and he leans against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest.

The change is jarring.

“Sure we have, kid. I challenged you to a fight years ago, and you thrashed my ass. Name’s Lea.” There’s something off in his smirk, something that isn’t quite right, and Ventus finds his gaze wandering to the floor. His eyes narrow as he shakes his head.

“No, that’s not right. I remember…more?” _What_ he remembers, he doesn’t know. He only knows that the memory is wrong, that he knows this Lea far better than he is aware of, that his heart twists and clenches and screeches at him that this isn’t _right_.

Ventus isn’t aware that everyone in the room is staring at him keenly, Ienzo’s fingers still poised above the computer keys. His head begins to ache, a splitting pain that begins behind his left eye and moves to the centre of his forehead, and he rubs at his eyes to try to stop the pain.

But Lea has that look on his face again, the strange one that reeks of disappointment and despair, and Ventus digs the heels of his palms into his eyes to try to dull the pain, to eradicate that _look_ from his mind. A groan of pain escapes his lips, and it feels as though something is fighting inside of him, pushing and punishing and trying to break free.

When he looks up, Lea is gone.

* * *

The linoleum is melting beneath his feet.

Lea cannot control it. He is Lea and he is Axel, and his heart beats in his chest even as it tears itself in two again. He feels the pain of the loss of a best friend again, the loss of a lover and confidante, the other half of his half-assed existence in another body without a heart. The plastic flooring is melting, turning to goop and sticking to his shoes and the flames are licking along his arms and through his fingertips, and he _cannot control it_.

It is panic and it is pain, turning his skin pink with the heat and setting off the smoke alarms above him, and it is grief and it is _love_. Soul-tearing love, that rips his heart into shreds and throws it into the waste bin, the kind that sucks everything out of him and leaves him feeling as hollow as he had when he was a nobody. It is fire he cannot control, that burns along his fingertips and through his hair. He can feel it, every fibre of his existence coming down to burning flames that scorch. Can he put his whole existence into this as he had before?

Because it is Roxas and it is not Roxas, his friend and his lover and his companion. It is sea-salt ice-cream and the chiming of a clock tower in his ears, and he cannot concentrate, cannot tell in which direction the exit is before he _explodes_ and-

Somehow, _somehow_ , Riku finds him. The hand that wraps around his wrist pays no attention to the flames encircling it as it yanks him hard, and then Lea is being pulled down a corridor and out into _air_ , cool air that aggravates his flames. The world is spinning, hazed in red and orange before he is being pushed down onto steps, and Riku’s face is near his own.

“Hey, _hey!_ Snap out of it!”

He barely feels the slap to his cheek, but it is enough to pull him back, to ground him even as the flagstones scorch beneath his palms and his feet.

“I can’t, I can’t _control_ it-“ And he can’t, even as his fingernails split the skin of his palms as he clenches his fists tightly, the wounds cauterising immediately. He is not sure if his quick breathing is him hyperventilating or an attempt to calm himself down, but it’s not working, and Riku’s hands on his shoulders are getting more forceful.

“You can control it, Lea. Push it _down_. Breathe. With me.” Lea lifts his hands to cover Riku’s, holding on tight enough to nearly break his bones, and how Riku is standing it he’ll never know. The silveret simply stands with him, talks him into pushing it away and controlling it, until Lea’s skin stops burning and the flames recede. The air is still warm, far too warm for comfort, and Lea’s clothes are sticking to his skin. His chakrams are in his lap, though he doesn’t remember calling them.

He’s been here before, nearly burning himself into extinction over Roxas, tearing at his hair the day Xemnas gave the order to bring Roxas in or be killed, and he had lost it. He had known then it would end with one of them dying, for he would never hurt Roxas enough to bring him in, and that meant _he_ would be the one to die. The only reason he hadn’t expired there and then had been Demyx, dousing him in water in the middle of the square before his grief could consume him whole.

It takes an hour for Lea to fully regain control of himself, of his raging heart that fights back against the injustice and the heartbreak. The cobbles are burnt beyond repair, the metal handrail for the stairs all but melted into the wall, and Riku collapses onto the stone steps next to him with a heavy sigh once Lea’s breathing returns to an acceptable level.

The palms of his hands are burnt, but Riku has already begun to heal them before Lea can apologise. They sit in silence for a few more minutes, Riku’s skin shimmering with a sheen of sweat from sitting so close to Lea. It is he who breaks the silence.

“Shitty, isn’t it?”

Lea nods, lowering his head to rest it on his knees. Riku continues. “He’s not remembering much of Roxas.”

“Is Roxas even in there?” Lea doesn’t know why he asks: he knows the answer. That look of confusion on Ventus’ face had said it all. Lea runs his hands along his face and into his hair, gripping tightly at the spikes as Riku shrugs beside him.

 _Let’s meet again, in the next life_.

Lea scoffs. He hadn’t fucking meant like _this_.

“It’ll get better.”

He scoffs again, and gives Riku an incredulous look.

“I don’t fucking want it to. I don’t want it, any of it.” He laughs sardonically, and his scalp hurts with the force of his grip on his hair. “Spent so damn long wanting a heart, and now I don’t want it. Not like this.”

Riku looks down at the floor, unsure of what to say.

* * *

Things slowly return to a tense and strange sort of normal as the weeks turn into months.

Lea avoids Ventus as often as he can, though the blond consistently seeks him out. Lea, being the sad pathetic sack of bones that he _is_ , can never say no. They never spend too long together, for Lea finds it too painful, too close to the aching and bared heart that thumps in his chest, and he frequently makes excuses to avoid spending too long with him.

Sora recovers, if physical recovery can be counted as _healed_ , but the brunet boy is hollow and empty, and Lea only sees him smile around Riku and Kairi. He is finding himself again, after having Ventus’ heart leave the confines of his own, and there are times when his usually bubbly personality is subdued, as though there is a hole in his chest he cannot quite fill.

Lea misses the sunset. He won’t watch it, not anymore.

But Sora starts sparring again, after a terrifying month of being unable to summon the keyblade, and then suddenly there’s schedules and training sessions and Lea’s Friday mornings are filled with sparring with Ventus and it’s _fucking hell on earth_.

* * *

Ven thinks he knows what is going on.

Or, he has a rough idea of what is going on, because he wakes up most days feeling like two people shoved into one body, with the name _Axel_ on his lips. He wakes from dreams of a castle and an existence in the darkness, of fighting with two keyblades and watching the world through Sora’s eyes, of sunsets and clock towers and salty ice-cream on the tip of his tongue.

He wakes with the urge to spend time with Lea, despite knowing that Lea is uncomfortable in his presence for an unknown reason. He wants to become friends with the man he feels like he is already friends with.

He wants to love a man he is incapable _of_ loving, because that’s not who he is.

And so Ven is certain that somewhere along the line, something has happened. He is convinced that there is someone else inside his head, another boy with his face and his heart but not his mind, because it is the only explanation for everything strange in the castle. It explains why Riku looks at him sometimes as though he is a ghost, why Lea cannot be near him, why Ienzo and Aeleus keep going to say his name wrong, and why he has memories of Terra with silver hair when he has never seen Xemnas.

And of course, things fall apart, when Ven wakes up for the third week in a row with a tear soaked pillow.

* * *

They are training, sparring in the ring suspended in time to bring everyone up to the same level. It is warm, Lea’s flames forming an extra level of obstacles Ventus needs to avoid, but the redhead himself is holding back. That look is in his eyes again, and though Ventus rarely snaps, he does.

His keyblade makes the most awful of screeches as it smacks off of Lea’s repeatedly, a flurry of metal and clanging and blurred lines, as Ventus unleashes weeks of unspent anger and confusion on Lea as the other man parries in confusion.

Someone is screaming in rage, and Ventus realises a bit too late that it is _him_ , groaning and furious and full of frustration. Lea, eyes wide in confusion and a hint of worry, puts a stop to it the moment Ventus starts making noises, jamming one of the points of his keyblade into the gap between the teeth of Ventus’, and the blond falls to the floor as his keyblade soars through the air outside the ring.

The only sound for a moment is the flames and their heavy breathing, before the flames dissipate and Ventus summons his keyblade back. And Lea _still has that look_.

“Stop looking at me like that!”

Lea’s brows furrow.

“Like what, kid?”

“Like _that_! I’m not a ghost, stop looking at me like you want me to be someone else!”

If Lea had looked concerned, that changes immediately. He looks shifty and uncertain, as though he has no idea what to say. It is a guilty look, one he tries to pass off with a scoff.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Ventus snaps. Again.

“Yes you do! Stop _it_ , I can’t be who you want me to be! I can’t love you like he did, because I’m not _him!_ ” The pain in his skull has returned, more painful than it has ever been before, and Ventus feels it at the back of his nose like an oncoming nosebleed.

If he starts leaking brain fluid, he doesn’t think he’ll be surprised.

“Listen, Ven-“

“Shut up! I can’t be someone else, I can’t…” Ventus trails off, in part because of the pain between his eyes, but also because Lea’s gaze has turned both wide and almost _horrified_ , and it’s homed in on Ventus’ hand.

“What, why are you staring?”

But Lea’s words are almost a whisper when he speaks. “Your keyblade.”

Ventus looks to his keyblade, and nearly throws the damn thing across the room in horror. His stomach drops in the way it only ever does when he receives unwelcome and terrible news, because the Wayward Wind is not in his hand. Instead his keyblade is long and black, with a guard made of long wings and a chain running up the length of it.

 _Oblivion_ , a voice in his mind whispers, and Ventus _actually_ throws it to the floor at Lea’s feet.

“ _No!_ I’m not _him_!” Ventus feels the pain in his head reaching a crescendo, bad enough that his vision is blurring. He can feel the break in his voice, the crackling weakness that tells Lea he is on the verge of tears. He is torn between two sets of memories, the boy he is and the boy his heart had allowed to develop emotions of his own. It is a complicated web of borrowed hearts and separate personalities, and Ventus cannot deal with it.

“I’m sorry.”

And before Lea can stop him, the blond flees through the open portal to Merlin’s house. Lea stays there, looking at Oblivion still laying there on the floor. It is proof of what Riku had told him, that though Roxas was Sora’s nobody, the heart in his chest had come from Ventus.

And now Ventus’ heart holds two people in it.

Lea bends down to pick up Oblivion, but it disintegrates beneath his fingers in a puff of violet smoke.

* * *

Lea is in his room, still trying to process _what the fuck_ had just happened, when Ventus knocks on the door an hour later.

Lea opens it slowly, arms crossed over his chest and leaning against the frame, when Ventus looks up at him. He looks dejected, guilty, and Lea kind of feels sorry for him.

“Back for round two?” He asks, eyebrow cocked. Ventus rolls his eyes and shoves past him into the room.

“By all means, come on in.” Lea mutters under his breath, closing the door behind him and leaning against it. Ventus paces across the floor, his steps tapping off the wood.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? It’s just, it’s _hard_ , I feel like I’ve been split in two, and it’s really hard when you keep looking at me like I’m breaking your heart.”

Lea shrugs.

“Then stop seeking me out.”

“I can’t just – wait, _what_? I don’t ‘seek you out’, Lea-“

But Lea cuts him off by taking a step forward, shaking his head. His own anger is rising now, because they wouldn’t be _in_ this situation if Ventus would just leave him _alone_.

“Yes you do, Ventus. You seek me out like some sort of lost fucking puppy. You can _see_ that it makes me uncomfortable, but you do it anyway! And then you complain when I can’t _help_ feeling hurt sometimes.” Lea, frustrated, storms over to the edge of his bed and drops down onto it, holding his head in his hands as he groans. Ventus turns to look at him, and the pain in his head, still throbbing from before, begins to get worse again.

“Lea-“

“No, let me finish. Neither of us can _help_ that he had your face, but I can’t get better until I can process this like a normal fucking person, and-“

“ _Lea_ -“ Ventus digs his palms into his eyes again, the pain worse than it has ever been before. He can feel his jaw pop as he clenches his teeth, but Lea is not listening.

“-I _loved_ that fucking brat, and he didn’t know, and you following me around isn’t helping _me_ -“

“ _Axel_.”

Every babbling words Lea is saying in his grief shuts down, stutters to a halt as though he has been muted, because _that voice_ is not Ventus. It is harsher, the tone of someone pretending he has no heart, and Lea feels himself holding his breath as he looks up.

“No.” He can’t help but say it, cannot stop the denial because Ventus’ expression is too soft and familiar, a well-known exasperated smile he would see every evening on the clock tower. “No, _please_.”

“Axel, look at me.” But Lea is now looking at his hands folded on his lap, and he can see Ventus bend down until he is kneeling in front of him, and warm hands take his own. “It’s me, come on.”

Lea daren’t look up, because once he does he knows it will seal it all, and he will never be able to look at Ventus again and see him as _Ventus_. But Roxas squeezes his hands, and when Lea looks up there is that _smirk_ , the cocksure one that Roxas took from him.

Lea is mortified to feel tears in his eyes: he has not cried since long before he turned into a nobody, and he will not start now. He forces himself to look at Roxas properly, and immediately wishes he hadn’t.

Because it _is_ Roxas. It is Ventus’ body and heart, but the body language is all Roxas, the wide eyes with the hint of confidence and recklessness lurking in them, the small smile that quirks the corner of his lips.

“Roxas?”

But Roxas shakes his head, leaning closer and tightening his grip on Lea’s hands.

“Axel, please, listen to me. It has to be them.”

Lea frowns, confused. “What are you talking about?”

But Roxas looks urgent, his brow furrowed as though he is fighting _something_.

“It has to be Sora and Ventus. It can’t be me, it has to be _them_.”

“Roxas…”

“Axel, you have to let me go. I can’t come back, not when it has to be them.”

Lea clutches back at Roxas’ hands, hoping to ground him, to get him to _stay_. “Don’t leave.”

But Roxas smiles at him, that sad smile of his that he wore the day he left the Organization, and Lea knows he’s already losing him.

“It can’t be me. Let it be them.” Roxas reaffirms, his grip on Lea’s hand tightening briefly before he lets go completely, and he stands back to where Ventus had been standing. “I loved you too, Axel.”

Lea tilts his head back to get rid of the wetness in his eyes, and Roxas gives him one last smile before, like the flick of a switch, he is gone. He is replaced by Ventus, who stands there looking confused and dazed.

“What… what just happened?” His brows are furrowed, confusion plain as day on his face, visible in the downturn of his lips and the crease on his forehead.

“Could you please, just leave? Just _go_. I need time, and we _can_ be friends just not _now_.”

And Lea doesn’t know what is going on inside Ventus’ head right now, but he does know that his own mind is in disarray, grief and disillusionment and a nearly overwhelming _sadness_ rising in his chest and threatening to break to the surface in bubbles.  

Something in Ventus breaks, tears coming to his eyes: he understands Lea’s pain, even if he doesn’t really know _how_ it feels. Lea had promised friendship all those years ago, and Ventus will take it if he can, even if it is due to the strange pull to the older man in his chest, because _Ventus_ wants it. Even if it takes time.

“I’m sorry.”

But to both of their surprises, Lea shakes his head and forces himself to his feet. He slings an arm over Ventus’ shoulder and directs him towards the door. If his laugh is watery, Ventus doesn’t point it out.

“Don’t be an idiot, you punk. We can’t help it. I said we were friends, didn’t I? We will be, now get the fuck out of my room.”

It is almost normal, _almost_ a perfect example of typical Lea behaviour, but they are neither of them blind, and they both know that Lea is only holding on to his composure by the skin of his teeth.

Ventus leaves with a small hopeful look, and Lea tries his best to smile, even though he knows it more than likely comes out as a grimace.

When the door shuts, he leans against it, and allows himself to break.

* * *

Radiant Garden’s sunset is quite possibly the most beautiful one he has seen.

Twilight Town’s had been beautiful, of course: there was a reason he and Roxas had been drawn to it. But Twilight Town had been a town encased in yellow, with its yellow brick buildings and dusty roads and cloudy sky, a warm breeze and sunburned skin with ice-creams melting too quickly. Twilight Town had been rustic almost, a sepia-toned photograph on the wall that Lea can no longer look at, only lit up in wondrous red and yellow.

Radiant Garden is nearly the polar opposite. It is not as wondrous as it used to be, when it was silver and grey marble lit up nearly white in the light, full of charming houses with their wonky roofs, a bright cityscape lit up with dozens of colours from the gardens and the signs. That bright silver and grey marble is now a dull grey, interspaced with too many exposed pipes and broken walls, but Aerith has ensured the growth of the gardens, and with gentle coaxing they have been restored almost to their former glory. From his vantage point, Lea can see so many colours, blues and purples and pinks, yellows and whites, looking like colour swatches on the landscape.

It is not as nostalgic as Twilight Town’s, and not as idyllic as it used to be, but it is the sunset of a healing city, and the first that Lea has forced himself to watch since he woke up.

He looks at the bag on the floor next to him at the top of the Castle’s tower. He’d brought three sea-salt ice-creams on muscle memory, too occupied with the thought of coming up here to focus on what he was doing, and whilst his mind tells him that _three_ is wrong, his body tells him that it was right. He doesn’t quite understand it, but then again he doesn’t understand much these days. After having the vessels and Xehanort explained to him twice, he’s decided to just roll with it.

As long as the worlds get saved, he doesn’t much care about the finer details. Not anymore.

“Mind if I join you?”

The wind is cool, and Lea turns to see Ventus at the battered doorway.

“Did you climb all those stairs?” Lea asks incredulously. Even _he_ hadn’t done that, he’d just summoned a dark corridor and been done with it. Ventus nods, but the red in his cheeks confirms it anyway.

“Yeah?”

“Pfft. Then yeah you can join, just for the effort.”

Ventus sits himself down on the ledge next to Lea, his legs dangling down over the rickety tower. Lea hands him a sea-salt ice-cream from the bag almost on instinct. It’s the spare one, the one he hadn’t meant to buy, and he silences the voice in his heart that tells him _no_ , that it’s meant for someone else.

They sit in silence for a while, and though it is not _awkward_ , it is by no means comfortable. It’s an improvement, though.

“I’m heading off tomorrow.” Ventus pipes up, ice-cream stick in between his fingers, but untouched. Lea looks at him with a raised brow.

“Oh? Bored of our prestigious company?”

Ventus laughs, but shakes his head.

“Yen Sid requested me, said he wants to put me through the Mark of Mastery.”

Lea grimaces.

“I bet Aqua was a big fan of that.”

Ventus grins. “She was okay with it, actually. I don’t think I’ll pass, but she says it’s a good way for Yen Sid to assess my skills.” He pauses, his lips turning down in a frown. “Plus, I think it’s better for everyone. I won’t be gone long, but it’ll help Sora learn to live with just himself in his heart, and it’ll help you heal.”

“You know, when I said I needed space, I didn’t mean that you should literally jettison yourself to another world.”

The laugh that Lea’s words bring out of him helps Ventus to feel lighter than he has in days. Things are okay: they’re a _damned_ tragedy, but they’re okay. Lea leans back on his hands, and Ventus allows the sea-salt ice-cream to fall from his fingers down the length of the tower. He sees it land on an overhang ten metres below.

“Do you think, when I get back, we can try to be friends?”

Lea scoffs, and gives him a playful shove.

“You _punk_ , how many times do I need to tell you that we already _are_ friends. I said so all those years ago, didn’t I? Yeah it’s shitty right now, but in the end neither of us are to blame.”

Ventus’ smile is wide, a toothy thing that is infectious, and Lea can’t help but smile back. He looks so much like Roxas, it would be easy to pretend for a moment that the last year had not happened, and that he was still in Twilight Town with his best friend turned lover.

But Lea won’t do that injustice to Ventus, not now, and so he only nods when Ventus comments on the prettiness of the sunset. Lea lets the ice-cream he had bought habitually for Roxas melt on the ledge next to him.

He may not be able to visit Twilight Town’s sunset, too full of sad memories as it is, but he will allow himself to enjoy Radiant Garden’s sunset. It has no sadness attached to it, for Isa had preferred watching the stars and the moon, and he allows himself the idea of forming newer memories on this tower.

The grief still hurts, of course it does. Some days he feels as though he has been hit in the chest with a shovel, desperate for air but unable to breathe deeply enough. He has little faith in Sora and his newly-announced mad-plan to try to bring Roxas back, but it is becoming easier to separate Roxas from Ventus in his mind. Ventus deserves better than to be looked at and associated with a boy he has never met.

They remain there in a companionable silence for the rest of the evening, and when they separate so that Ventus can pack his bag for the next day, they feel lighter than they have in months.

**Author's Note:**

> I promise I have not forgotten about Twisted, but I had the idea for this fleshed out and then the newest KH trailer basically crapped all over it, so I thought it best to get it out before next month's newest trailer!
> 
> I meddled with the idea here that Roxas is Sora's nobody, but his heart belonged to Ventus and so Ventus gets his memories, and also the theory that Roxas is just Ventus without the memories, but I didn't make it clear either way!


End file.
